Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/97

Rh At court we find a delicacy of taste in every thing, a delicacy arising from the constant use of the superfluities of an affluent fortune, from the variety, and especially the satiety of pleasures, from the multiplicity and even confusion of fancies, which if they are but agreeable are always well received.

These are the things which properly fall within the province of education, in order to form what we call a man of honor, a man possessed of all the qualities and virtues requisite in this kind of government.

Here it is that honor interferes with every thing, mixing even with people's manner of thinking, and directing their very principles.

To this whimsical honor it is owing that the virtues are only just what it pleases, and as it pleases; it adds rules of its own invention to every thing prescribed to us, it extends or limits our duties according to its own fancy, whether they proceed from religion, politics, or morality.

There is nothing so strongly inculcated in monarchies, by the laws, by religion, and honor, as submission to the prince's will; but this very honor tells us that the prince ought never to command a dishonorable action, because this would render us incapable to serve him.

Gruillon refused to assassinate the duke of Guise, but he offered Henry III. to fight him. After the massacre of St. Bartholomew, Charles IX. having sent orders to all the governors in the several provinces for the Hugonots to be murdered, viscount Dorte, who commanded at Bayonne, wrote thus to the king, Sire, among the inhabitants of this town, and your majesty's troops, I could not find Rh